Remember last week, when I wrote (slightly condescendingly, I will admit) about people who post their workouts online? And I was even slightly transparent and admitted to being one of those people??
Well, today I'm going to embrace that in the pursuit of leadership and leading my life, and I'm going to post about my workouts. CrossFit has done so much for me, but one of the biggest thing it has taught me is a simple lesson in leadership. To lead your life, you have to do hard things.
I joined my CrossFit gym in April of 2021. I boxed for several years, and post-COVID in 2021 I was getting back into boxing thing as my fitness center reopened boxing classes, but I was looking to be more fit overall. Not that I was a slouch- boxing is not for the faint of heart and I'd developed a pretty solid fitness base. Plus I'd had a fitness app membership during quarantine that introduced me to the joys of fitness training, and I joked with a friend it was a gateway into CrossFit. Which it was.
I love several things about CrossFit. I have run (well...mostly walked) three races since joining- and I HATE running. I've done Half Murph a couple of times, and a scaled a bunch of other hero workouts. Cindy? Fran? Girls Gone Bad? Yeah, I've done those! I get whelts attempting double unders. I can lift myself about 6 inches off the ground in a pull-up attempt, and I can kick up into a headstand without screaming and falling over. I can do very small hand-stand push-ups, as long as I have a stack of ab-mats under my head and only have to push up about an inch.
I lift weights. I LOVE lifting weights. I try to set a personal record every time I lift; sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. This week, I hit a major milestone- I deadlifted 200 pounds for the first time-a goal I have had for over a year. I'm so close to my clean/overhead lifting goal of 100 pounds I can taste it- I am 10 pounds away. If I'm very lucky, I will make it by the end of the year; this week's heavy day is cleans and jerks.
CrossFit introduced me to rowing. I LOVE rowing. This year has been hard for rowing, because it requires a lot of stamina and thanks to some health issues affecting my lungs, my stamina is about nil. So this year I focused on consistency when I couldn't row has hard as I wanted to, and I've seen some big improvement there. I can consistently row at a 2:10-2:20 500m split pace on my long rows (1000m +). My 500m sprints are around 2:05 and that didn't budge this year with my lung issues, but next year, I'm going to break the 2-minute mark, which has been my goal for the last 18 months. I can already row 2-300m at 1:50, but my sprints aren't nearly as consistent as I'd like them to be.
One of the best things about CrossFit is I track all my progress on a CrossFit workout app called Beyond the White Board (BTWB) so I can look back and see how I've changed and where I started. It's so motivating to know I started snatches with a PVC pipe because I couldn't hold a 15 pound bar over my head while squatting, and now I can snatch 65 pounds. It's hard, but I can do it.
It's really hard, but I can do it.
That's the thing about CrossFit- we do hard things. It isn't easy to get up and do 10 rounds of kettle bell swings and pushups. Rowing a 5K is hard- even when you love it. Running anything is torture, especially when your hips and knees concur that you should NOT be running. Getting on an assault bike and biking 15 calories, only to hop off and do rope climbs (or floor to standing rope climbs in my case, because I can't climb the rope yet) and follow that with 10 sit-ups, and then do that set another 4 times, is nasty. But that's the kind of thing we do in CrossFit. We do hard things and we see results.
I have defined muscles now. I can run. I might hate it, but I can run. I don't get winded taking the dog for a walk. I feel better and come out of my classes feeling like I'm on cloud nine- the improvements in my mental health have been extraordinary. It's hard, but the benefits are worth every single welt on my legs, or blister on my feet, or peeling callous on my hands.
Here's the thing with leading your life, and leadership in general: leadership is all about doing the hard things. I often quote one of my gym's favorite lines- I CrossFit, so I can do this. When I feel like my life is out of control, and right now with a new business I feel out of control all the time, I remind myself that I do hard things at CrossFit, so I can handle this.
Our next seminar is coming up on December 5! Come learn about shattering stereotypes in leadership- you can register here.
And since I am showing off just a little bit, a snippet of last week's deadlifting action. 7 sets of 2, as heavy as I could lift them.

Yeah, I jumped 10 pounds for that last set. It was a "go big or go home" moment, and I crushed it!
Sarah
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